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<P>Provides information about, access to, and common tools for GemFire
distributed systems.  When a program wishes to access distributed dtaa
data stored in GemFire, it first creates a {@link
org.apache.geode.distributed.DistributedSystem} that will connect
to the distributed system.  GemFire provides two means of discovering
the other members in a distributed group.  The first uses IP multicast
to broadcast a message to all members that listen on a given <A
href="DistributedSystem.html#mcast-port"/>port</A> and <A
href="DistributedSystem.html#mcast-address">address</A>.  The second
method of discovery uses special VMs called {@linkplain
org.apache.geode.distributed.Locator "locators"} to keep track of
the members of the distributed system.  Each locator is identified by
a host/port pair that is <A
href="DistributedSystem.html#locators">specified</A> when connecting
to the distributed system.</P>

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